Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did.So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. --- Mark Twain

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Tanzania - Kimani Falls

Day 296
31406 km since the beginning
Written in Malawi.

Kimani Falls was supposed to look like in this picture.

The place itself is about 150 km southwest of Sao Hill, and then a dozen miles of less–used road. So back and forth quite a day`s journey . So I`ll load back everything on the car again and make a day`s test trip to see the Kimani Falls. Then return for one more night , although I have been visiting Estonians for two weeks already .

There were about 7-8 police control posts within these 150 km . At last I reached the river of Kiman. Turning left I thought it was the right direction, but in a few hundred metres I reached a school yard. Fortunately, the lessons had already begun , otherwise the audience would have reached to the horizon. I turn back and try to find the right road, but all the trails are only suitable for a motorcycle. I inquire the locals about the right direction and after a brief conversation one of them takes a seat in my car and explains the way between the village houses. Usually the guides wish to accompany to the attractions, but this time it is different. I was told that it would be about 25 km to the waterfall.

Big Stones.

And dry riverbeds.

Meanwhile, much more decent road, but not for long.

You could say that just almost there, the last few hundred meters to the parking place.

The Falls is visible already.

This visit was now very different from the usual sightseeing visits. Starting from the fact that no one wanted to come with and nobody was seen on the road within these 10 kilometers and ending with the situation that there was not anybody by the Falls. Neither ticket nor souvenir sellers. Probably not a place to wait for visitors .

Last trail was not meant to drive by car, when the road is still half a meter wide, it does not make sense to try to go there by car.

Another picture from between the branches. Everything is green around the Falls , but there is little water.

And then quickly back to the high road, because the sky has become suspiciously dark blue. Still, the rainy season is just beginning.

Somewhere here the back road went over the rocks and through the yellow grass.

In The National Museum of Tanzania, there was a wooden bicycle at the exposition and an explanation that these bikes are still used in some regions. And so they were . This specimen is obviously without chain , but still a wooden bicycle.

Warning triangle. On the road the twigs replace the triangle twigs. In fact in Tanzania a driver must have two triangles and it is checked.

Here a recent burning of grass has taken place. Anyway gas stations are quite safe.

Road-side Tanzania.

Real Africa

The road uphill to Kitulo plateau.

Pass Saba Hamsini na. In the local language - now the road goes downwards again.
The distance between the heights is a kilometre.

Next there was a big road towards Mbeya.

Except that I never got Mbeya. Because, before Mbeyat the traffic remained strangely more sparse, and there was practically no traffic on inbound. What was surprising in itself, since it is the main transport route from Tanzania towards Malawi and Zambia. And before Mbeyat there is a large road intersection where the road diverges.

I drive on , and see in front of me a long line of trucks , vanishing in the distance. I think then - that perhaps another truck weighing station, I pass them and notice that roadside gas stations are full of large and small cars . But there are no moving cars, an important traffic centre between the three countries, and there is no traffic. Intuition says that something is not right now, and I slow my speed, but still drive on.

This is the only picture that I took from there, because the farther I went, the more hands began to wave and signal me to stop. I could drive as far as there was smoke and fire to be seen from the distance and some kind of barriers were on their road.

For a moment I thought that a fuel truck has caught fire , but this time was it a completely different story. I stopped the car, the locals gathered around the car and I was made clear - I can`t continue driving because of the local unrest. The car tires were burning in the middle of the road, so that nobody could pass. No one wanted to talk more about the reasons of the unrest. I was suggested to turn back or wait at the nearby hotel. The traffic outage had began on Friday morning already and nobody could tell the end of it.

Anyway, it turned out this way that a local sat in my car and instructed me to drive - avoiding the big intersection and using side roads - to the road taking to the direction Malawi.